WWE: Bret Hart Responds to Seth Rollins

The public squabble between Bret Hart and Seth Rollins is getting more interesting. The WWE Hall of Famer openly questioned Rollins safety and believes he did Rollins a favor as opposed to taking a cheap shot.

This all started back in November shortly after Rollins sustained his knee injury during an interview with SI.com. The Hitman questioned Rollins’ safety, pointing to injuries in matches to John Cena and Sting.

“Shawn was always really safe. He was always a really safe worker, but I don’t know about Seth Rollins. That knee in the face that he gave to John Cena was unprofessional, at best. It’s really strange that a guy like Rollins, who I have a lot of respect for, would be that reckless with that knee in the face. If someone kneed me in the face like that, I would have met him in the back dressing room with a baseball bat. There’s just no excuse for it.”

“You can’t hurt somebody like that under any circumstances. It’s totally reckless. It can’t happen. The other thing is, when you’re the champion, you have a responsibility to not get hurt. You have to be spot on. I love that Rollins kept going on and finished the match, and that shows a lot of courage.

Nobody can hurt you and you can’t hurt yourself. It’s not allowed. I was champion, off and on, for quite a few years, and I never missed one title match from an injury. I got hurt lots of times, but the reality is you’ve got so much pinned on you and so much tied onto you, the company and your peers can’t afford for you to get hurt. When you do get injured, it throws a wrench into everything. I do feel bad–Seth Rollins is a young guy and he’s obviously very talented, and I hope he comes back from his surgery and learns from all these things. I hope they give him another chance and his opportunity has not been squandered from an injury, regardless of whose fault it was.”

Rollins broke his silence on this recently and responded to the comments on the Talk is Jericho podcast.

“I have all the respect in the world for this guy,” Seth begins, “But Bret Hart had some comments about me and how safe I am in the ring because of John’s broken nose and my getting hurt while I was the champion. And that hurt my feelings. I haven’t seen Bret since then, and I know he comes from a different era when they worked through a lot of stuff, but that sucked. For him to say that-in a Sports Illustrated Interview-was rough.”

It didn’t take long for the often outspoken Bret Hart to offer a rebuttal to Rollins. Hart does his own podcast and rather than apologize for his comments, Hart says that Rollins should be thanking him for saying it so publicly.

“I’m a really big fan of Seth’s…I think that’s why I made such a strong criticism. It’s meant to make him think. It’s not a personal attack. It’s a professional criticism of his work.”

Hart also stands by his comments, even offering more harsh criticism.

“He clearly knees John Cena as hard as he can in the face. It’s not John Cena’s fault. If you watch it it’s not John Cena leaning in. It’s Seth Rollins pulling [Cena’s] head down and kneeing him as hard as he can in the face. It’s bullshit. Everything I said is true. And if he’s got hurt feelings, it’s better to have hurt feelings than a broken, shattered face.”

The only consolation Hart offers is that he blames the agent and not Rollins.

“The truth is Goldberg kicked me in the head cause he didn’t know what he was doing similar to Seth Rollins throwing a knee into someone’s face and not knowing what he’s doing…It’s not a small error it’s a huge error. He’s lucky he didn’t kill John Cena.”

Hart admits that he never saw the Sting match but according to the Hitman, it never should have happened regardless.

“I told [Lawler and Backlund] I worked down and worked their styles with a thumb to the throat and selling…What happened with Sting, again, I didn’t see it if he hurt Sting by throwing him into a turnbuckle and he hurt himself really bad, you have to question, why are you throwing a 58-year-old guy into a turnbuckle?”

At this point I think it’s in Rollins’ best interest to keep any response private between he and Hart. Hart is convinced that Rollins was culpable in some of these injuries and that opinion isn’t going to change. It’s just unfortunate that this has gotten so out of hand publicly.

Eric is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog. Eric has worked in the pro wrestling industry since 1995 as a ring announcer in ECW and a commentator/host on television, PPV, and home video. Eric also hosted Pro Wrestling Radio on terrestrial radio from 1998-2009. Check out some of Eric's work on his IMDB bio and Wikipedia. Eric has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business.

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